


The Dead Robins Club

by zoruas



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, DCU, DCU (Comics)
Genre: Barbara Gordon is Oracle, Batfamily (DCU), Damian Wayne is Robin, Dead Robins Club, Jason Todd is Red Hood, Other, Stephanie Brown is Spoiler
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-05
Updated: 2020-06-06
Packaged: 2021-03-04 02:53:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,797
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24546451
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zoruas/pseuds/zoruas
Summary: It wasn't often that they'd all come together like this, but when they did, it was because it was necessary. Stephanie would usually be the one to round them up - she'd give Jason a call, who would give Dick a call, who would let Damian know exactly what rooftop to meet them on, and then they'd sit down, dressed in civvies, legs hanging off the edge and gazes either trained on the skyline or the street below.
Relationships: Barbara Gordon & Damian Wayne, Stephanie Brown & Jason Todd & Damian Wayne
Comments: 13
Kudos: 66





	1. Chapter 1

It wasn't often that they'd all come together like this, but when they did, it was because it was necessary. Stephanie would usually be the one to round them up - she'd give Jason a call, who would give Dick a call, who would let Damian know exactly what rooftop to meet them on, and then they'd sit down, dressed in civvies, legs hanging off the edge and gazes either trained on the skyline or the street below.

At first, it would be quiet, the silence between the three of them only breached by the sound of Jason taking a drag from his cigarette or by Stephanie tapping away at her phone. Damian was the only one who made no noise, and Stephanie thought that made sense - he'd snuck up on her enough times to cement his place as a little assassin, constantly melting into the shadows and shit.

But then Jason spoke, promptly putting his cigarette out, the smoke no longer wafting around them, and Stephanie put her phone away, and it began. They talked and talked and talked and talked - about their lives, about patrol, about being Robin, about being Spoiler, about being the Red Hood, about death. It was rarely somber between the three of them, despite the largely jarring subject matter. Stephanie would often joke, drawing laughs from Jason, whose usual vitriol was replaced with achingly familiar energy. The wound was too new for Damian to fully participate, and his older siblings understood that - they gave him the space to process, to feel.

They'd talk about waking up to know that the people you loved no longer had a space carved out for you in their lives. About having to reassemble yourself, your identity, all the reintroductions, and the complete discomfort of having to squeeze your way back into the fold. Jason and Stephanie knew it well - they knew the process, the sting of being cast out, deemed too aggressive, too volatile, too unfocused. The two had arranged for this in the first place to prevent Damian from going down that same path, and Dick, recognizing the necessity of the task, had extended his support.

And then Damian leaned back, and spoke with certainty. "I'm going to stay with Gordon tonight. I need to get away from the Manor."

Stephanie bobbed her head, a little concerned, and Jason grimaced.

"Why?" Jason finally asked. Stephanie understood the source of his unease - Damian, to an unhealthy extent, obsessed over his place in the family and his stature before his father. When he first arrived, he'd almost torn Tim apart, but after months of careful conversation and bonding, the realization had hit all of them: Damian was raised to be this way. He had been abused and manipulated, a fact which soothed some tensions. He and Tim still clashed, but the whole physical violence facet of their relationship seemed to have petered out. If he was thinking about leaving Wayne Manor to spend time with Barbara, something must have been wrong.

"I require..." Damian clenched his hands, "some time to myself. Away from him and the... expectations. Away from it all. I can still patrol, but..." He left the rest of the statement unspoken, allowing it to hang in the air for a few moments.

"I understand what you mean," Jason offered, and Damian nodded in quiet appreciation. "It's real fucking tough, Dami. Just... a lot of pressure. Especially for us dead robins."

Stephanie grinned at the nickname, something she'd come up with a few months ago (much to Dick’s distress), and echoed Jason's sentiments. "He can be really weird sometimes, and if you need to get away from that, Babs is great to hang out with for a while. She was always there for me when I first became Spoiler, and I stayed with her more times than I can count when I was Batgirl. She's a lot easier to talk to. And she won't judge you, I promise."

"Can't count the number of times she's patched me up," Jason said, bracing a hand against the rooftop. "B has nothing on her, not gonna lie."

Damian looked forlorn, a show of emotion far beyond much of what Stephanie had seen from him. She reached out, brushing a hand against his shoulder in a silent question, and he inclined his head towards her. With that acceptance, she pulled him into a tight hug, leaning her cheek against his dark hair. His breathing was choppy, and it hit Stephanie that he was just a _kid_. It wasn't often that he accepted physical affection, but they'd grown close over her time as Batgirl, and she knew he needed it every now and then.

"I'll pick your stuff up from the Manor," Stephanie murmured. "Jay can let Alfred know in advance. I'll swing by Barbara's place with it tonight, okay?"

"You want me to let Dick know too?" Jason asked, adjusting his utility belt.

"I can inform Richard," Damian said, and that was that.

* * *

Alfred left a duffel bag for her on the balcony outside of Damian's room, and she swung upside down from her grappling line and made a grab for it. He'd left a scrap of paper on top of it - in his elegant cursive handwriting, he'd written a note that began with _Dear Miss Stephanie_ and politely requested her presence at dinner on Friday. She paused to scribble back a reply, agreeing to attend and doodling hearts and a _Thanks, Alfred :)_ , and then she was off, into the city, touching down on everything from fire escapes to rooftops as she headed for the Clock Tower. When she arrived, panting and the bag successfully in tow, she drummed her knuckles against Barbara's window and slid her way inside when it opened.

Barbara greeted her with a smile, pointing at the other end of the room where Damian was leaning against a wall, drawing on a tablet before wheeling back over to her holographic array of computer screens. Stephanie slipped her mask and hood off and handed Damian the bag.

"Let us know if you need anything," she said, watching as Damian zipped the duffel open and retrieved his toothbrush.

"I will," he responded, and Stephanie gave him a dramatic little salute before slipping out of the Clock Tower and swinging back into the city.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i want to preface this by saying this can be interpreted as a hallucination of sorts. i know stephanie did not actually die, but i was inspired by a post that i'll link at the end of the chapter. this was definitely a fun premise to play off of :-)

They met at the very cusp of life and death, where things shifted and Gotham was far too blurry for his tastes. Damian thought he recognized them amidst all the fog, felt his heart enter his throat at the sight.

Brown was in front of him, nestled on a rooftop covered in whispering grass. She made no move to acknowledge him when he approached, and although he could not see her eyes behind the lenses of her mask, some part of him knew she was staring at him, shaping him up. He recognized her cape, Robin tunic, and the distinctive devil horns band he knew she'd sometimes worn. It glowed red amidst her mess of blonde hair. Next to her, Todd sat, gaze trained on the terrain of the rooftop, clearly younger than her. His Robin suit looked just like Dick's, and his gloved hands played with a dandelion, twisting the stem around and around and around. Todd looked distinctly scrawny, which Damian supposed made sense - he had grown up malnourished, after all. When Damian walked closer, he looked up, his expression jarringly neutral, betraying no particular emotion.

"Where am I?" Damian croaked, and if he was not so distressed, he may have been irritated by how small his voice sounded.

Todd stood and walked towards him. Damian's brows furrowed in confusion as the young boy wordlessly reached out a hand and touched the armor plate protecting his chest.

"Look," Brown urged, her voice light and unburdened. “Look, look.”

Damian looked down, nearly stumbling at the sight - a large blade was sticking out of his chest, forming a gaping wound. With each breath, his entire body seemed to heave, his lungs unable to handle the burden of the perforation. The wound was inexplicably clean; Damian could not see any blood.

"Look," Brown said again, and Damian cursed the tears that welled in his eyes as her body became covered in bruises and cuts and burns and scars and as Todd's face was covered in streaks of blood, parts of his skin torn apart by some invisible force. Everything was so _stupidly_ clouded - Damian could hardly think, could hardly move on his own or remember anything, so when Todd pointed at the space in front of them, he was desperately grateful for the moment of guidance as he sat down.

The question danced on Damian's tongue and teeth and lips. _Am I dead? Am I dead? Am I dead?_ He didn't dare ask it. Instead, he asked something spontaneous, some part of him wishing to take the edge off. "Did it hurt?" The question was, for the most part, aimed at Todd - he knew Brown's nebulous end had hurt. He had paved a way through her history on the Batcomputer and had felt his blood run cold at the pictures of her mangled body. He knew Todd had been beaten before the end, that the bastard had taken a crowbar to his skull and face and eyes and legs, but Todd had been blown up and Brown had been tortured. Surely there was a difference. "Not the beating, the bomb. The end of it all."

Todd nodded once. "Yes," he said. "It hurt."

Brown laid on the rooftop, back to the grass, and hummed. "It always hurt. Always, always. But not anymore."

"It was quick," Todd said, and then angled his head downwards, as if listening for something. "They're trying to help you right now. We're just the middlemen."

"The Dead Robins," Brown offered.

"And they won't succeed?" Damian asked desperately. He should have done more, should have said what he wanted to say, done what he wanted to do. Stupid, stupid.

"No," Todd said, wiping at a streak of red on his forehead. “They don’t know it yet, though.”

Damian stared, realizing with a newfound ferocity how utterly terrified he was of the pain. _Ya Allah_ , he thought, too scared to move. The blade was still stabbed into his chest, and although it didn't hurt, he wasn't keen to disturb it any further.

Brown spread her arms out, cape sprawled across the greenery. She raised her hands a little, and Damian watched in a crazed sort of wonder as flowers began to materialize, orange and white and pink around her body, stretching out from the ground and into the fog.

"When I think of them," she breathed, and Damian knew she was thinking _Cassandra Tim Bruce Dick Barbara_ , "flowers grow out of my grave."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> https://onwater.tumblr.com/post/618288486571704320/i-dont-lose-either-when-i-think-about-you

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading !! i might add to this with more drabbles abt steph, jason, and damian. comments r highly appreciated, you can find me @onwater on tumblr.


End file.
